Always Expect a Train

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Poke78

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There is a crossing coming out of a wooded residential area on 51 between the Keystone Dam and Mannford that is stupid dangerous. Those suckers fly through there too.

If it's the one I am thinking of I have a relative that lives in a house on that road. You do not cross those tracks without stop, look and listen, even then it's a little unnerving.

That line continues west to Morrison & Perry and passes just south of where my son & I have a deer lease. That crossing is only marked with cross-bucks so I always make a full stop. I had one close call in our first year of traveling that country road.
 

TwoForFlinching

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One of my buddies got hit, must have been twenty years ago, at that crossing on 177 North of Stillwater. Train took the entire Pepsi truck with it. Always leery of those crossings. There's 2 on US62 between Lawton and Hollis, but my railroad friends informed me those unmaintenanced tracks have a 10mph speed limit for trains, so the odds of Uncle Murphy creating mayhem are at least slim on that stretch of road.
 

Snattlerake

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I was told by RR employees there should be a 14 second interval between the gate/lights activating and the train crossing the intersection.
Is this correct?
They also said if ever there was a need for the gates to be down it could be accomplished with jumper cables between the two rails.
 

Okie4570

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I've been on several train vs vehicle mva, there's not many second chances for sure. There's been more than once in NW where I've come up on train tracks crossing the highway with a train crossing the road and the arms not down at night. If I didn't know the tracks were there or was in a semi half asleep you'd never get stopped in time.
 

Profreedomokie

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My thoughts have been "Always Expect An Idiot". I have a philosophy I use when driving our roads. When I get anywhere near another car or truck I think " Now how can this person turn my day into a bad one?" Driving very small cars and street bikes got me thinking this way. About 6 months ago I was driving North down 14th street in Ponca . I was in my lifted Land Rover Discovery which has an ARB front bumper and electric winch. I was coming up on a string of stopped cars that were in the outside lane in front of a Quick Trip type store. I was in the inside lane. As I approached the cars , I slowed down just in case some idiot pulled out heading South. As soon as I got right by those cars a gray Mustang pulled out and then stopped across my lane. I was on the horn hoping to at least scare some sense into the driver. I barely got stopped. There wasn't any way the young girl driving the Mustang could see traffic coming from the South like me. She showed her appreciation by flipping me off as she drove away. That ARB bumper was about head high to her sitting in that car and if I had hit her with that 4500 pound truck doing the speed limit she might not have lived.
 

TerryMiller

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Time was, and to some degree it might still be, one could literally drive their car on the rails. The wheel span side to side was identical to the width of the rails, so if one lowered the air in their tires, they could drive onto the tracks, head down the tracks and not have to touch the steering wheel.

A classmate of mine used to do that when he lived 10 miles out of town. Back in town, he'd slip by the gas station and fill his tires back up.
 

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